Author's note: Update with this one now!

Betty pushed her key into her apartment door, trying to ignore the fact that both Jughead and his friend Sweet Pea were looking up and down the parameters of the hallway. It was utterly ridiculous that they didn't give her an option to their request to be in her apartment with her – instead, they just assumed they had the right to make that decision for themselves. Infuriating, truly. Grumbling quietly to herself, she pushed her door open and walked inside, calling a "lock it behind you", over her shoulder to whoever was the last person who entered. They'd figure it out.

Walking into her kitchenette, Betty dropped her dance bag onto her kitchen barstool, then shrugged out of her sweater the next moment. Looking up, she spotted both Sweet Pea and Jughead staring at her. "What?"

"Is there a reason your tone is so defensive, Betts?" Jughead asked and she flinched, involuntarily remembering all the times he called her that. Happier times.

"Don't call me that," she snapped, and he looked contrite, nodding his head.

"Yeah, of course. I forgot," he murmured, voice layered in pain, but she didn't give a damn. Not even one. Too little, too late in that regard.

"Yeah, well," she muttered, making her way to her tea kettle and turning it on. Recognizing that neither of them volunteered information as to why they were staring at her, she dropped that question for now and asked another one. "Tea?"

Jughead nodded. Sweet Pea, however, asked a question in response to her question.

"Got a shot of whiskey I can pour into it? It's been a hard night," the taller said.

Betty laughed despite herself. "You were the one sent out on a foolish mission that you didn't have to go on, Tall. But yeah, I got whiskey."

Betty shot him a look of amusement, registering the fact that she may have very well just got herself a new friend. She wasn't going to ask, and she wasn't sure what she did to deserve it, but she'd take it. Camaraderie was hard to come by in college. She got the three of them tea and then handed the bottle of whiskey to Sweet Pea, who gleefully poured in a very generous shot. Taking a sip, he hummed approvingly.

"Good shit," he said, tone appreciative.

"Only the best for you," Betty replied, batting her eyelashes. Then she pivoted on her heel and nailed Jughead with a glare so intense it'd would give Hal Cooper's a run for his money was he still alive. "Okay, Jughead, let's get this shit straight. You guys can stay here tonight, if you must, but after that, you're gone. This is my home and my comfort space. This is where I come to feel safe."

"And can you honestly tell me you feel safe right now, Betty?" Jughead replied, tone thick with annoyance. "Can you honestly tell me you don't feel scared senseless after receiving the texts and the gifts and the pictures?"

"Woah, hold on. What pictures?" Sweet Pea interrupted, holding his hand up to bring their conversation to a stop and the attention onto himself. Betty turned her glare on him as well.

"None of your fucking business, Tall. Look, I appreciate you getting me away from whoever the guy was in the hoodie, but you don't know me from Adam. You don't just demand answers and expect to get them. It's called earning that right," Betty snapped.

"Betty, stop being so goddamned complicated about this," Jughead growled in frustration. "We are trying to keep you safe."

"Yeah, Jughead?" Betty threw at him. "Trying to keep me safe, are you? Where the hell was that protection with my dad? Where the hell was that protection when I needed you the most during the two worst nights of my life – both having to do with my father. The night I had to save me and my mother and the night my psychotic aunt shot him in front of me? Where were you then?"

Her tone was heated; body a blazing inferno as she threw as much vitriol and hatred into her words as she could. "You left! You left without a fucking goodbye like a goddamn coward. And now you show up, where I'm at college of all places, and think you suddenly have the right to show any concern? I never took you for stupid, Jughead." By the time she was done ranting, Betty's chest was heaving with the exertion behind her words. She hadn't allowed herself to feel her anger for the friend who could have been her whole world if he hadn't run for a long time. She hadn't taken the opportunity to really sit down and digest that he did leave. Gone in the night without a single goodbye.

Betty watched as Jughead swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he seemed at a lost for words. Nodding ever so slowly, he eventually found the courage to speak. "Betty, I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am -,"

She interrupted him. "Then don't. You're wasting both of our time if you try. I couldn't give two shits less about how sorry you are. You made your bed, now lie in it."

His eyes clouded with a pain she hadn't seen in years from any other pair of eyes but her own; staring back at her in mirrors as she tried to figure out where it all went wrong. "Betty…,"

"What? What could you possibly say that would make any of this right, Jughead?" Betty asked, shoulders slumping as the fight drained out of her. "I have a stalker and you, Rocky and Bullwinkle, seem to think you're my new appointed bodyguards. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: you guys can help me catch this stalker, but you cannot disrupt my life. Not anymore than you already have. Do we have an understanding?"

She watched them, eyes flickering between them both, before Sweet Pea nodded and looked at her.

"Yeah, Betty, we have an understanding," he said quietly. "I'm glad you weren't hurt tonight."

He didn't need to add the 'or worse' for Betty to understand the silent implication. She nodded.

"Me too," she murmured, grateful for that at least. Sighing, she picked up her tea. "Couch makes out into a bed. You both can take it, or one can have the couch and the other the floor. Goodnight."

With that, she turned on her heel and headed into her room, shutting the door behind her quietly and backing up until her back was pressed against the wood. Inhaling deeply, she shut her eyes.

Well fuck.

Author's note: Enjoy! No proofread cause on lunch. Thoughts lovely per usual! Xxx